The present invention relates to a device for removing individual fiber tufts from several fiber bins of a brush making machine.
In the manufacture of brushes which have a bristle array composed of different kinds of fibers or bristles, shiftable or rotatable fiber bins may be used which are positioned alternatingly in front of the tuft remover. In this way it is possible in principle to use any number of fiber bins having correspondingly many different kinds of bristles or fibers, especially bristles or fibers differing in color. During the stuffing action and between the individual working cycles the fiber bins are changed over (e.g. rotated or shifted) in such a manner that the particular bristle passage from which the bristles are to be picked is positioned by its outlet end at the removal point for the tuft removers.
This change-over needs to occur all the more quickly, the faster the stuffing speed of the brush making machine, the mass inertia of the fiber bins playing an important role in this respect, and in modern brush making machines cycling at high speed it is a problem to change over the relatively heavy fiber bins quickly enough.
This is why a device for removing individual tufts of fibers from two fiber bins of a brush making machine has already been defined as described in EP 0 206 385 B1. This device comprises between the tuft remover and he two fiber bins a slide which is shiftable translationally and features a through-passage assigned to each fiber bin. Depending on the position of the slide the one or the other through-passage is positioned opposite the tuft remover. As compared to the fiber bins the slide has a much smaller mass inertia and can thus be moved faster. However, it is not possible for principle reasons to use more than two fiber bins since separation between the different kinds of fibers would not be ensured.